Emily Zemler

June 7, 2011 –
Mikel Jollett, singer-guitarist for the Airborne Toxic Event, was born and bred in California and now resides in Silver Lake, the Los Angeles neighborhood that's become a haven for hipsters, artists, and indie rockers. The band, who got their start playing around the city, recently released their sophomore album, All at Once (Island). "It's a really supportive community," Jollett says of the local music scene. "The bands look out for each other, we're aware of each other, and we take pride in one another's success." That camaraderie, he says, has nothing to do with their sound. "We all have very different ideas about music. But that's sort of like L.A., right? All these different cultures and different people with different ideas coexisting."
Breakfast spot Millie's Café3524 W. Sunset Blvd.

February 14, 2011 –
Home sweet home: Perth, AustraliaExpect: Wigged-out psych rock for kids who dug Congratulations more than "Kids"Must hear: Innerspeaker (Modular), out now
"I can't stress enough how insignificant Tame Impala is," Kevin Parker says, slumped on a bench in Glendale, California, a few hours before the last show of a long European and American tour. Maybe it's just his Aussie humility talking, but there's a lot of evidence to the contrary. Tame Impala's 2010 debut, Innerspeaker, which Parker wrote, played, and recorded himself at a house near Perth (with some mixing help from Flaming Lips and MGMT producer Dave Fridmann in upstate New York), revels in gauzy, layered sonic explorations -- the "White Album" meets Black Sabbath.

November 20, 2009 –
Denver rock band Meese has been relentlessly touring for the past few years, most recently since the release of their new album, Broadcast, in July.
That means the four musicians and their crew spend a lot of time holed up in a moving van, often searching for ways to pass the time. Guitarist Nate Meese discusses the best way to make time fly -- reading.
And while he's not afraid to admit to plowing through the Twilight books -- and to "nerding out" when he met the series' author, Stephenie Meyer -- Nate recalls one recent book that stood out: Mark Haddon's critically acclaimed and award winning novel The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, a heart-warming tale of an autistic teenage boy in Britain.
How did you come across this book?My mom is in love with Terry Gross on NPR.

September 15, 2009 –
You know Juliette Lewis as a movie actress and a musician, who released her first album, ...Like a Bolt of Lightening, in 2004 with then-band the Licks. Recently, Lewis has changed gears, forming a new band called the New Romantiques, hiring a new producer in the form of the Mars Volta's Omar Rodriguez-Lopez, and forging a new, more explorative sound on her fourth record, Terra Incognita.
For her selection in our ongoing series featuring rockers talking about their favorite literary works, Lewis is touting the influential book Letters to a Young Poet, a terse collection of letters poet Rainer Maria Rilke sent to a student in 1903 and 1904. Here she explains how the book helped her understand the creative process and how she hopes it will come to the aid of other creative minds.
How did you come across this book?A friend gave it to me.

September 4, 2009 –
The hit FX comedy It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia wasn't the most likely TV show to be transformed into a musical. You don't expect wisecracking cast members/co-creators Rob McElhenney, Glenn Howerton, and Charlie Day -- whose lives revolve around a Philly dive bar -- to pen a catchy tune, or break out into song.
But last season's final episode, which aired in November, found Day's character, also named Charlie, enlisting the gang to perform a musical he wrote entitled The Nightman Cometh -- failing to mention his hidden agenda, that the play was simply a vehicle for him to propose marriage to a waitress he's pined for since the series began.
The musical episode was such a success that it's been transformed into an actual stage production, which the cast -- also featuring Kaitlin Olson and Danny DeVito -- will perform in seven cities, beginning Sept. 15 in Boston.

August 19, 2009 –
New York electropop duo Fischerspooner know a thing or two about New York City's underground scene. They emerged as video, performance, and musical artists in the late-'90s at a variety of off-the-grid parties and events, before breaking out as a full-fledged band with their 2001 album, #1. (Their third record, Entertainment, dropped in May.)
So it's no surprise that singer-songwriter Casey Spooner recommends journalist Linda Yablonsky's debut novel, The Story of Junk, a gritty, gripping tale of heroin use during the '80s music scene in Manhattan's then-dangerous Lower East Side. Spooner talked to SPIN.com about the book and his connection with the author.
How did you come across this book?I'm really bad because I carry a lot of books around and I read parts. it's hard for me to finish books.

June 24, 2009 –
Philadelphia rockers mewithoutyou are beloved for their introspective, thoughtful lyrics and the spiritual elements they imbue into their music. So it should come as no surprise that a book written by an actual guru deeply impacted their fourth album, It's All Crazy! It's All False! It's All A Dream! It's Alright, released last month.
In this latest entry in our ongoing Book Club series, mewithoutyou frontman Aaron Weiss explains how the short, moralistic fables in M.R. Bawa Muhaiyaddeen's My Love You, My Children -- which seem directed at children but are intended for a broader audience -- inspired his band's creative process, and, quite specifically, a song from the new album, which you can stream below.
How did this book come into your life? My mom read it to me when I was a child. She met Bawa in the 1970s.

May 28, 2009 –
Clues frontman Alden Penner reads a lot of books. And though he doesn't necessarily finish them all, the ex-Unicorns man says a wide variety of writing influenced the songs on Clues' self-titled debut. "[A] book I read recently was a history of the Mennonites in the Ukraine, because part of my background is Mennonite," Penner tells SPIN.com. "One of the Clues songs, 'A Perfect Fit,' throws a line around about the two hundred year history of the Mennonites in the Ukraine who are known as a migratory people who were always displaced."
One book he's actually read cover-to-cover in recent months is Benjamin Hoff's beloved philosophical exploration The Tao of Pooh, which applies the principles of Taoism to the characters of A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh in a simple, universal way.

May 15, 2009 –
Artists like Gang of Four and Bob Dylan have famously referenced the work of Flannery O'Connor in their songs. So it was only a matter of time before a musician in our ongoing Book Club series would praise the Southern Gothic author, whose short stories and novellas made her one of America's most critically admired writers before her death from lupus in 1964, at age 39. We recently caught up with Orenda Fink (singer of Azure Ray -- and half of duo O+S, a collaboration with Remy Zero bassist Cedric Lemoyne , a.k.a.

April 9, 2009 –
Usually the musicians talking about their favorite books in SPIN.com's ongoing Book Club series are lyricists and songwriters -- which makes sense because if you write the words, you're probably influenced by reading words. For this installment, we asked Westin Glass, drummer (and non-songwriter) for the Thermals, to recommend a novel.